Customer Relationship Management

[billyjonessr]

MAS 90 4.4, SAGE CRM 6.2 SP1

Just migrated from 4.05 to 4.4 and had a few snags, but overall the migration was ok.  We're now attempting to bring CRM online, coming from ACT 6.0.   So far, the experience has been less than desirable.  As old as ACT 6.0 was, it was much more user friendly than CRM.  For example, we use groups for our contacts and in ACT 6.0, it was a relatively simple matter to add or remove multiple contacts in groups.

This morning, we were adding contacts to a group in Sage CRM through the find feature, finding the company and then adding the record to the group.   We inadvertantly hit the 'add to group' button without any company criteria in the find field and it added all records to the group.   That was the first unexpected surprise.   The group records have an 'exclude' field so we excluded the records we wanted to keep and did delete.....that deleted the whole group.  Not to be discouraged, went to a backup for the group, which included all the records, again excluded the records we wanted to keep and there's not a method to discard the records that's not checked.  Or to keep the records that's checked.   I find this amazing.

What are the experiences of those who've used Sage CRM for a while?   Right now, I'm not comfortable in going forward with time and resources in implimenting Sage CRM and not comfortable that it will be as user friendly as our old ACT 6.0.

Maybe tight integration with MAS isn't worth the pain of Sage CRM.  And what other surprises are in store?

[thebottomline]

I would do two things.  First, upgrade to MAS v4.5, then install CRM v7.1.

Second, contact someone who has experience installing and setting up CRM.  It is totally different than MAS 90 and requires a different skill set.

Contact Peter Wolf pwolf@azamba.com at Azamba Consulting Group www.azamba.com.  Yes, you will end up spending some money but honestly, you will SAVE a lot more money, time and reduce the frustration by have a seasoned veteran assist with this installation.

[AzambaInc]

Thanks to Jeff for the mention.

Are you doing your upgrade and your CRM implementation on your own or do you have a consultant helping you? In general, CRM is looked at as a strategic initiative - the software is just one piece of it.

It would be interesting to know exactly why you made the move to CRM. Was it a recommendation? Are there specific things that Act! isn't doing that you need? Are you just trying it out to get more information?

Aside from that, if you are going to make the investment to go to CRM from Act!, you should consider, at the bare minimum, some proper training to perserve the investment. 

If you aren't ready for or don't want to make the proper investment in CRM, I would suggest sticking with Act! I don't know much about your business but you should consider the options before moving ahead with CRM without completely understanding it.

CRM will enable you to do some amazing things with your business but you need to be properly prepared.

I would call your current Sage partner to discuss options. You are also more than welcome to contact me to discuss options if you choose.

Peter

312.513.9333

pwolf@azamba.com

[billyjonessr]

Thanks everyone for your replies.

I guess we're going to go forward on the Sage CRM recognizing there is a learning curve to implimenting the system.  Our reseller is helping us with these issues but I'm just frustrated that  a simple feature such as the ability to remove multiple selected contacts from a group isn't available in the application.  To me this would be a very basic feature of such a program.  Our reseller contacted Sage CRM and they said that it may be forthcoming in a future release.

[phonelady]

We too were a long time ACT user and very frustrated by how Groups worked in CRM 'out of the box'.    We found a reseller (not the one that sold it to us) that was able make Groups work they way we needed them to.   Send me  a PM if you'd like more info.